Personal Narrative: Moving Away From Home

As teenagers, we tend to think that we don't need our parents help, but I must admit that it’s not easy living without either one by your side. For my second year of high school, I moved away from home and became a boarder at Bolles. At first, I was so overly excited to be away from home because I thought I was about to have all the freedom in the world. Well, soon enough I learned that I thought wrong. Of course, being in the dorm environment consisted of certain rules to ensure our safety and of course there were rules that the borders, including myself did and do not agree on. Over the past three years, I have observed that the boarder population feels like some rules are not made for our safety, but made to stop us from having a little

freedom to do anything with our friends. However, it’s understandable that the dorm staff versus the boarders see the rules differently. Although, it started to get to a point where not just one person, but multiple people started feeling the same way about the rules and environment that was being created. I can’t even tell you how many times “I wanted to come home” (Bryson 12), and leave Bolles.

Sophomore year was simply a year based on trying to fit in and settle down here at Bolles because I had a long three years ahead of me. Turned out to be not that long. Junior year, I can't tell you anything whatsoever. I was never in the dorms. Throughout the week I did my homework when I got back from swim practice, and during the weekends I was gone until curfew unless I signed out to stay at a friend's house. I didn't get into any trouble or really even interact with the other boarders or dorm staff because I just wasn't there to do so. Now, senior year has been by far the worst year for me in the dorms. Some of the dorm staff blame my troubles on the fact that I'm a senior with a car, which I honestly hate because neither of those are the reason for my troubles. This year, I've gotten to know other boarders, especially the girls more and the staff as well. Out of my three years of being here, my senior year is the most time I've ever spent in the dorms; half because I was grounded a lot of the time, but also because I chose to. The narrator in Good Country People describes a scene in which Manley Pointer takes Hulga’s glasses off, “When her glasses got in his way, he took them off of her and slipped them into his pocket” (O’Connor 198). Here, Hulga’s glasses are her blindness to the world, and likewise, this year, I overcame my blindness and definitely started noticing my surroundings such as the unhealthy environment I have lived in for three years. I was just oblivious to it until now because it is my experience of getting into trouble this year, along with simply spending more time at the dorms made me more aware of such things.

Sitting here, weekend after weekend, having nothing to do because I was grounded, I was somewhat forced to observe my surroundings such as the dorm moms and what they say and do.

Then it would come the time where I thought I was free again, and before I knew it, I was grounded again. Now, my mom, some of the boarders, day student friends, my college counselor, and myself agreed that some of the punishments I received were too much and out of line. But no matter how much my mom tried to make it better for me, nothing ever changed. So I just had to take it and watch the cycle repeat. It was a cycle of where I would begin to build trust that the dorm moms were here for my best interest and wanted to make things better and help me, but one definitely proved that was not the case. I admit, I am to blame for some cases but others unquestionably shouldn't have happened or gotten me into trouble. Even if I shouldn’t be getting in trouble, I did one way or another. It got to a point where I felt like I couldn't breathe without getting into trouble. I stopped thinking positively and was filled with negative thoughts. This year I have felt like one of the dorm mom’s target, and others have said it too. However, I had a breaking point. I simply couldn't take me getting in trouble or the punishments anymore because I felt like this entire year that's all that has ever happened to me. I started to have nervous breakdowns and couldn't get through a day without crying about my situation or talking to someone about it. I don't believe I was in depression, but I definitely felt depressed when I had to go back to the dorms. I dreaded it. In the Heart of Darkness, the narrator says, “The old doctor felt my pulse…and then with certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head” (Conrad 11). Here, the doctor is checking to see if the narrator is sane, and similarly, I felt like I need to be checked by a doctor. I believed I was losing my sanity and how I thought and

felt about the dorms was crazy. It was so bad that my mom had to fly from Saudi Arabia to stay with me for a couple of weeks to ease my way through the grounding. I felt like a prisoner not being able to do anything, similar to Catherine in Wuthering Heights, “…contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds” (Bronte 237). I was trapped in this continuous cycle.

This year has been like a rollercoaster ride; some portions are good, and others aren’t. Undoubtedly, I just wanted to get off this rollercoaster. So the best way to do so was to simply avoid the dorm moms and leave every weekend. Yet, even trying to get away during the weekends, the dorm moms made it so hard to. At first, I thought it was purely to ensure our safety, but when parents wanted nothing to do with the dorms because they didn’t like the staff or due to the continuous and harassing emails, or when the dorms override our own parent’s decisions, means something. It was as if we had to climb a mountain to leave; and when we weren't in the dorms, the dorm moms found a way to be on us for anything and everything we did. There was no way of being free from them.

It came a point when the staff realized the boarders started to fear of saying or doing anything without getting in trouble for it. The staff tried to talk to us as a whole and wanted to understand our side. And as always, we were not heard and nothing changed. Though, I changed. I became a much stronger person. That sounds so cliché but I really did. I started to become more outspoken and stood up for what was right. I began voicing my own opinion, even if the dorm moms clearly didn't want to hear it and would say, "Don’t argue with me" to get me or the other girls to stop talking, but I kept going because they needed to hear what had to be said. I would also seek help from other staff in school and talked to them about what was going on. Additionally, I reached out to other girls and asked for their opinions on the dorms, the rules, the treatment we receive, and many more questions. I was trying to get an insight on how other people felt, trying to figure out if I was the only one feeling the way I did...I wasn't. I wasn't alone. Eventually, I realized that I could possibly be the one to make a serious change in the dorms.

Countless years before I arrived, and during my stay, there has always been a need for a change in the dorms, especially the girl’s dorms. Yes, there have been some changes such as staff, rules, and so on. But a big change still needs to happen. I noticed that it wasn’t trying to change my punishments, but to change the environment in the dorms to make it a much healthier place for the boarders because they shouldn’t feel negatively about this place that is supposed to act as their home. Eventually, my mind was set to make a change for the better in the dorms.

I know, this all sounds crazy and I can't expect you to completely believe this, but the only people who will ever truly understand are the girls that have been living with me and have witnessed it. This essay isn’t supposed to talk bad about the dorms, but this is my experience at Bolles that has changed and shaped me, and I know in some form it will help me in the future. Though, to this day, only weeks away from graduating, I still feel like a target at the dorms but I have been told that it will soon end. And all of this will end. I will soon be able to walk away and say to myself, “I survived”, surely not alone, but with the support of my family, faculty, but mostly my closest friends who happen to be boarder girls and who I can honestly call family because they are the people that have seen all of this happen and have been through it themselves. They’re my closest friends because we have basically lived and relied off of each other to survive Bolles. I know I will soon be saying goodbye to my friends, my teachers, my teammates, to Bolles, but finally to the dorms. Dante says, “I saw the lovely thing the heavens hold, and we came out to see once more the stars” (Dante 383). At one point during my experience I had lost hope in that things will get better. However, due to the continuous support I have, I learned simply talking to certain faculty at Bolles and keeping them aware of the ongoing issues in the dorms can make a difference for not just myself but for others. Today, I do hope that one day and I truly do believe and see that there is a change coming. As Dante suggests, there is hope for a much better place at the end of this road; and soon my own journey through my own version of hell will end. Soon, I will have a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Soon, I will finally be able to breathe again. Soon, I will be free.